Sony World Photography Awards & World Photography NY Events

October 13 – November 5, 2011
Ground Floor and Mezzanine
Curated by former The New Yorker Visuals Editor Elisabeth Biondi

November 7 – November 12, 2011
Mezzanine Only
(which will feature work from the Student Focus and City Projects programs)

Chelsea Art Museum is thrilled to partner with and host the Sony World Photography Awards and the World Photography Organisation (WPO) New York Events. After its highly successful iterations in Shanghai, São Paulo, San Francisco and London, the WPO makes its mark in New York – fittingly in the heart of Chelsea. The Events and Exhibition – which will feature WPO photography competition winners from an open call for both
amateur and professional photographers in New York and abroad – celebrates the launch of the exhibition as much as the WPO’s rich history of promoting young students, educators and emerging artists and providing a platform upon which to create, share, and collaborate with one another.

Throughout our rich history, CAM has provided exposure for over 1,000 new and thriving voices of all art disciplines through artist talks, dance performances, musical recitals and more than 150 exhibitions. This project directly supports our mission to deepen and foster new and existing partnerships with other well-established, like-minded cultural institutions such as the London-based WPO, which shares our commitment of highlighting emerging artists in unexpected and groundbreaking ways.

CITY PROJECTS
Thursday – Sunday, October 20 – 23 & November 11 – 13, 2011
The NY Events Schedule includes City Projects and Student Focus, which are comprised of collaborative lectures, critiques, editing workshops and one-on-one sessions with professional and renowned photographers. Students and artists will be encouraged to venture out into the streets and find images that they feel embody the the vibrant and perpetually-evolving streets of New York City.

Leading these intimate programs will include internationally-established reportage photographer Jez Coulson, street culture photographer Cheryl Dunn, The New Yorker photographer Steve Pyke and British-based street photographer Nick Turpin. In addition, a juried selection of images produced from City Projects will be displayed in the Museum galleries.

FREE ARTIST TALK
IN THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S STUDIO with Curator Elisabeth Biondi
Wednesday, October 26, 2011; 6:15-7:30pm

The WPO’s In the Photographer’s Studio Artist Talk will feature emerging Argentinean photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg that invites viewers to interact with and discuss the current state of contemporary art and the direction of photography as an art form.

ABOUT ELISABETH BIONDI

After fifteen years as the Visuals Editor of the New Yorker Elisabeth Biondi left the publication in Spring 2011 to work as an Independent Curator. So far, she has curated DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPY: Engaged, Personal, and Vital, and “Under THE BRIDGE” for the NY PhotoFestival 2011; and NEW YORKER FICTION/REAL PHOTOGRPAHY at Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea. This fall her exhibit, BEYOND WORDS: Photography in the New Yorker will be the season’s opening show at Howard Greenberg Gallery. She is a Senior Thesis Adviser for SVA Graduate School and is a Contributing Editor for Aperture Magazine and FANTOME magazines.

Ms. Biondi joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1996, shortly after photography was introduced to the magazine and as it began to play a more prominent editorial role. As Visuals Editor she built the magazine’s reputation for its use of photography, which is much acclaimed and has received numerous awards, including two National Magazine Awards.

Previous to The New Yorker, Biondi worked for GEO Magazine, VANITY FAIR and STERN.